Philadelphia Throws the Kitchen Sink at Food Waste Issue

The City of Philadelphia is throwing everything – including the kitchen sink – at sustainability.  Specifically, the City has taken an innovative approach to determining the best way to dispose of food waste like spoiled food, cooking scraps, leftovers.

First, the background: Philadelphia sends about 700,000 tons of waste to landfills each year – roughly 10 percent of which is food waste.  Each ton costs the City $68 in tipping fees alone. 

The numbers are more startling across the country.  The Environmental Protection Agency has calculated that the average U.S. family generates 17 pounds of food waste in a given week.  The National Resources Defense Council recently found that 40 percent of the food produced in the U.S. is wasted each year – for an annual loss of about $165 billion.

Most of that waste ends up in a landfill, where it decomposes and releases methane, a greenhouse gas 21 times more potent than carbon dioxide, into the air and soil.

As part of the Greenworks initiative, Mayor Michael Nutter’s plan to make Philadelphia the greenest city in the country, the City has committed to diverting as much food waste as possible from landfills.

That effort launched a partnership with InSinkErator, the world’s largest manufacturer of food waste disposers (also known as “garbage disposals”).  Called the Clean Kitchen/Green Community program, the initiative encourages residents to use disposers as an environmentally friendly and convenient household tool.

Disposers are appliances installed under the kitchen sink to grind up food scraps such as fruits, veggies, pasta and even small bones.  The scraps, which actually average 70 percent water, then flow through the sewer system to Philadelphia’s wastewater treatment plants.  There, the scraps can be converted into renewable energy, fertilizer pellets and clean water.

In other words, disposers can help residents turn solid waste – trash! – into a renewable resource that benefits the City and saves taxpayer money.  The appliances can work in concert with composting and recycling to bring about a significant drop in the amount of waste the City sends to landfills.

“Philadelphia is committed to becoming the greenest city in America, and this partnership with InSinkErator is an example of how the private and public sectors can work together to improve the City’s sustainability efforts and residents’ quality of life,” Mayor Nutter said when the initiative launched. “We hope this pilot program will point us toward saving tax dollars and a better environment.”

As part of the Clean Kitchen, Green Community program, Philadelphia residents are eligible to receive a $20 Visa prepaid card when they purchase any InSinkErator Evolution Series disposer between June 1, 2012 and September 30, 2012.  Plumbers, many local hardware store,s and large outlets like Lowe’s or Home Depot all carry disposers.

For more information about food waste disposers and the Clean Kitchen/Green Community program, visit http://www.philadelphiastreets.com/ckgc-overview.aspx or call (215) 525-0430.